Loose ends, late in the weekend

1) The Friday-night Common debacle:

Both duck and girl are fine. Thank you, all.

(The most tangible after-effect was the $9 I had to shell out for the cab ride.....that, and I certainly have figured out how to get y'all's attention!)

Having another day to mull, I regret I wasn't a cooler customer. More Bette Davis in my disdain for this insignificant insect deigning to touch my coat. "Why am I so good at playing b*#$%s?" Ms. Davis once said. "I think it's because I'm not a b*#$%."

Man, when I replay the scene I could have been a great b*#$%! "Out of my way, you uncouth slug!" and all that, slinking past without a second look after slapping him on the jaw. Not that I regret having worn my tennis shoes and screaming at the top of my lungs. Or carrying the duck. But in a movie replay....would have been a total cliche....

I also can see the guy more clearly: a junkie trying to bum cash like those who troll outside of nightclubs after closing, bumming cigarettes off drunk college students. He wanted ME to be cool about it, slip him a bill, "yeah man," all that. He didn't realize he was existing in an alternative universe where women don't take well to strangers pretending they're carrying a gun.

2) The stand-up comedian conversation

Suffice to say, it went ok Thursday night. He's a local boy with a wicked Bahstan accent.

AND a Republican who is convinced that after 20 minutes and a couple beers, he will convince me to take a walk on the dark side.

Now that was funny!

He also is working up a Rick Astley imitation.

It took only 3.5 minutes into the conversation before I confessed that I was writing a blog on my dating experience. And that he'd probaby feature on it. Strangely, we just kept talking. He told me that I sound really smart.

Next up: he's supposed to call me some night to go out for a beer. Hopefully not one of THOSE beers.

3) Days gone by....match.com c. 2007

This is not my first time on match.com. I spent some time in October talking alternatively to a) "marathon mikey", a community college professor who has run 20-odd marathons and, in the voice of a motivational speaker, told me to go for my dream of running Boston; b) a personal trainer/former chef 100 miles away in Wellfleet, celebrating his 40th birthday, who wanted to take a chance on a long-distance relationship and thought I had the best legs on match.

MM and I tried one phone conversation. It was a Sunday afternoon, I was walking to Brookline. He was listening to a NASCAR race and grading papers and I hadn't slept the night before. You can imagine the un-scintillating back-and-forth. About a week later he wrote to say he was exclusively dating someone else.

But it wasn't a huge loss, because I had started a much more flirtatious exchange with the PT/Chef and liked him.....dreaming of how fit I was going to be, while at the same time eating grilled salmon like a queen and getting to be on the outer cape with free housing! He and I had planned a date in Boston for a Saturday afternoon....meeting in a neighborhood neither of us knew and exploring until we found the perfect spot for dinner.

Four nights before said date, I phoned PT/Chef to set the plan. He never responded. I e-mailed him the day before. He wrote back within the hour....on the night of my call, a tragic event rocked his world so deeply he could not remotely think about entertaining a long-distance relationship. But he was SO glad we had a chance to talk.

Yeah, right.

Both of these gentlemen have showed up on my "I've viewed your profile" list in the last two days. Their bologna has a first name: it's r-e-g-r-e-t.....:-)